Firefly Metals (ASX:FFM) is laying the foundations for an upscaled production restart at the Green Bay Copper Gold Project in Canada ahead of its presentation at the Diggers & Dealers Mining Forum.
The company is planning a staged resumption of mining operations at Green Bay with the construction of a new processing facility at the mine.
Firefly, which has a market capitalisation of $682.89 million, has secured environmental approvals for the project’s processing plant, while construction permitting has begun.
Other studies are underway, including mine design and scheduling, as well as geotechnical, power analysis, and tailings design.
These activities will be conducted ahead of a Scoping Study which is due for completed in Q1 2026.
This news comes after the company completed a metallurgical testwork which is a key component of the economic studies underway.
Using an optimised flowsheet, metal recoveries to final copper concentrate from all samples averaged more than 98% copper, 75% gold, and 78% silver.
Recent gravity and conventional leach testing of the pyrite flotation tails has achieved further improvements in precious metals recovery, with gold increasing to more than 85% and 84% for silver.
The company adds the improved recovery of gold enhances the economics of the upscaled restart, with the current resource containing 550,000 ounces of gold across all mineral resource categories.
Further, these results are an improvement in comparison to recoveries attained through the small-scale 500,000 tonnes per year Nugget Pond processing plant, which recovered 95% of the copper, but just 66% of the gold and 72% of the silver.
Managing Director Steve Parsons says with the metallurgical results returned, the company has ticked another important box along the path to unlocking the value of this asset.
“Not only did we achieve extremely high recovery rates, but we did it using simple, low-cost processing routes,” Parsons says.
“This augurs very well for the project’s overall capital and operating costs. These results will form part of the economic studies which we are now progressing in parallel with the drilling program ahead of the next mineral resource estimate update.
“The results of all these work streams will come together to demonstrate why we believe Green Bay is so well-placed as a world-scale copper-gold project in a tier one location.”
A resource estimate update is planned for Q4 2025, which will be used to underpin the economic studies including the Scoping Study.
The Green Bay Project comprises a ming underground mine, the Little Deer exploration project and a nugget pond processing plant and Goodyear’s Cove port.
Ming is a copper-gold volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) deposit located 9km east of the township Baie Verte. Little Deer lies 40km south of the Ming Mine and is a copper-rich VMS deposit.
Meanwhile, the plant consists of a crushing and grinding circuit made up of a two-stage jaw crusher, a semi-autogenous grind and ball mill.
Firefly Metals CEO Darren Cooke is presenting at Diggers & Dealers on Wednesday 6 August at 1.20pm AWST.
Diggers & Dealers is a mining investment forum, held annually in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia. This year’s forum marks the 34th year of the event. Mining.com.au is again attending this year’s event.
Global copper demand grew 2.5% in Q1 2025 compared to the same quarter in 2024. The main growth contributors were China (up 3%), the US (up 7.4%), and the EU (up 0.5%).
However, refined copper demand for ex-China Asia fell by roughly 1%. China’s refined copper demand (representing 60% of global usage) was about 4.2 million tonnes in Q1 2025 – a slight increase from the same quarter in 2024.
Global copper demand is forecast to rise by around 1.6% in 2025, with growth affected by market uncertainty linked to tariffs and potential trade disruptions.
Write to Aaliyah Rogan at Mining.com.au
Images: Firefly Metals
